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Atomic-scale electronic structure of the cuprate pair density wave state coexisting with superconductivity

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

P. Choubey
S.H. Joo
K. Fujita
Z. Du
S.D. Edkins
M.H. Hamidian
H. Eisaki
S. Uchida
A.P. Mackenzie
J. Lee
J.C.S. Davis
P.J. Hirschfeld

Abstract

The defining characteristic of hole-doped cuprates is d-wave high temperature superconductivity. However, intense theoretical interest is now focused on whether a pair density wave state (PDW) could coexist with cuprate superconductivity [D. F. Agterberg et al., Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys. 11, 231 (2020)]. Here, we use a strong-coupling mean-field theory of cuprates, to model the atomic-scale electronic structure of an eight-unit-cell periodic, d-symmetry form factor, pair density wave (PDW) state coexisting with d-wave superconductivity (DSC). From this PDW + DSC model, the atomically resolved density of Bogoliubov quasiparticle states Nðr, EÞ is predicted at the terminal BiO surface of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 and compared with high-precision electronic visualization experiments using spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The PDW + DSC model predictions include the intraunit-cell structure and periodic modulations of Nðr, EÞ, the modulations of the coherence peak energy ΔpðrÞ, and the characteristics of Bogoliubov quasiparticle interference in scattering-wavevector space ðq - spaceÞ. Consistency between all these predictions and the corresponding experiments indicates that lightly hole-doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 does contain a PDW + DSC state. Moreover, in the model the PDW + DSC state becomes unstable to a pure DSC state at a critical hole density p*, with empirically equivalent phenomena occurring in the experiments. All these results are consistent with a picture in which the cuprate translational symmetry-breaking state is a PDW, the observed charge modulations are its consequence, the antinodal pseudogap is that of the PDW state, and the cuprate critical point at p* ' 19% occurs due to disappearance of this PDW. © 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Date Published

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Volume

117

Issue

26

Number of Pages

14805-14811,

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85087467958&doi=10.1073%2fpnas.2002429117&partnerID=40&md5=a699a898eb720e288774df48eb9d1c89

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2002429117

Group (Lab)

J.C. Seamus Davis Group

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